


A Kind of Reunion

by Amand_r



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-15
Updated: 2011-03-15
Packaged: 2017-10-17 00:16:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/170891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amand_r/pseuds/Amand_r
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Mirror masturbation is a confrontation with your essential self, your uncluttered beauty and your most real sexuality." (Eric Francis)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Kind of Reunion

**Author's Note:**

> For the ladies of ODM/lj.

_Mirror masturbation is a confrontation with your essential self, your uncluttered beauty and your most real sexuality._ (Eric Francis)

 

He didn't really register when it started, but lately he had begun looking at himself in the mirror. At first it was little glances, checks to make sure his hair was spiky, or that his sweater wasn't so oversized that he looked like a bag on a stick. There must have been other factors leading into it, or actions he indulged in that nurtured the habit, but damn if he wasn't sure what they were. In fact, the whole thing only occurred to him because Duncan pointed it out at dinner.

"Is there a reason you're obsessed with the mirror?" he asked Methos once the waiter had left them with plates of pesto-drenched linguini.  
Methos glanced away from the mirror behind Duncan's head and concentrated on his pasta. "No."

"Because you seem to be doing that a great deal lately."

"No I'm not."

Duncan shrugged and passed the basket of garlic bread. "Sure, whatever you say."  
However, ever since Mac mentioned it, he noticed it more and more. In fact, it was distracting. Instead of looking at the window display of the local bookshop, he was watching his own eyes. He even tracked his movements down the street in every shop window.

He'd never been this self-aware. It was a strange feeling, understanding that one was staring at oneself on a regular basis. And if Duncan noticed it, then Joe had probably noticed it as well. Methos wasn't sure whether or not his friend had refrained from saying anything out of politeness or amusement. Probably the latter.

Methos didn't care if other people thought he was vain. But he cared about what he deemed to be a potential liability. Measures had to be taken.

***

"So, who died?" Amanda joked, fingering the black material over the hallway mirror. Methos ignored her.

Amanda followed Methos into the living area, then flopped on the couch with a soft _foomp_. Her coat flared out and covered the rest of the cushions. Methos opted for the windowsill, because this close, he couldn't see himself in the glass.

"No really," Amanda said after several taut moments wherein a clock banged the time and three cars screeched their brakes outside. "Is this about the mirror thing?" When he glared at her, she smiled. "Duncan told me."  
What could he say to that?

"It's disturbing," he said softly, to nothing in particular. "I've never been self conscious. Ever." Amanda nodded, but didn't speak, so he continued. "It's dangerous, being distracted by physical things."

"And?"

"I don't know how it started, but I like it, Amanda. It's as if, I've never seen myself before, which, as we all know," he managed wryly, casting a glance back at the form on the couch, "is quite the impossibility."

Amanda chose to leave the sofa and wander around the apartment, her fingers resting lightly on one valuable object or another. Methos didn't even have the energy to watch her as closely as he normally did, and he wondered if he would pay for it later.

"Well, I came by to ask to borrow your car," she said brightly. "And since the car has mirrors, I'm betting you don't need it." He gave her the finger. "Aw come on, Methos, this is just a phase. When was the last time you thought you were sexy?"

He shrugged. "I'm always sexy," he said sullenly, then stared out the window at the snowfall. "You should see my little black book."

"Your little black book is so old it's gone gray, Methos," Amanda laughed.

"Maybe you just need to get laid." She put down a small Swarovski horse and clenched her fingers, as if resisting a movement. Methos left the windowsill and snagged the horse and went into the kitchen to make himself more coffee.

"Are you volunteering?" he called over his shoulder.

Amanda followed him into the little kitchenette, running her hands on the counter. "I _would_ , Methos, but you're not my type." When he snorted, she backed up a little, her eyes wide. Her blonde hair, Methos had to admit, made the gesture very fetching. "Isn't it an old proverb that friends shouldn't be lovers?" He set the horse in the cupboard and opened the freezer unit to retrieve the coffee. "I just think that-"

"Amanda, it was a _joke_." When she blinked at him, he shook his head and spooned six tablespoons of coffee into the filter. "In part."

Amanda watched him finish setting the coffeepot before continuing. "Well, about the car-"

"Yes, _about_ the car. Why?" He couldn't fathom why Amanda would want his car when she had a perfectly good Ferrari... "Wait, is this because it has four wheel drive?"

She was sneaky; he had to give her that, with the wide-and-not-looking-him-in-the-eye. "And the hauling space," was the final result.

If that wasn't an admission of guilt before the act, he didn't know what would have been. Hell, she could be moving. But if she had been moving, she would have lassoed both him and Duncan and Joe into helping her, _if_ she didn't hire professionals. She could be hauling lots of things. Kegs. Animals for the local rescue shelter. IKEA furniture.

He decided that he didn't want to know. "The keys are on the table in the foyer. Good luck."

On her way out, she stopped short of the doorjamb and turned. He really hoped that this wasn't some admission of her potential crimes involving his vehicle. Not that he really cared, but well.

"When was the last time you masturbated into a mirror?" was the rather abrupt question.

He sighed. "What are you, Dr. Ruth?"

"It's healthy. Hell, women do it all the time. I thought guys did too." She paused, setting one hand on her hip. He watched her tilt her head and slide her left calf out, a jutting gesture that was supposed to entice, but was probably just second nature to her. "I think someone came up with it in the sixties. Something about loving yourself being the ultimate form of expression"

He waited for more. Apparently there wasn't any. "Well, I'll take it under advisement."

She kissed his cheek. "You do that."

When she was gone, his keys in her palm and mayhem assuredly in her heart, Methos stood with his hand on the doorknob and contemplated calling Duncan to give him the heads up. The rest of him realized that a. he didn't really care, and b. when Duncan found out in his own sweet time it would be infinitely more amusing. Funny, how one could derive the best amusement by simply doing nothing.

The black cloth over the foyer mirror sagged in the corner, and he reached up to straighten it. The other end fell off the mirror, and he saw the diagonal cut of his forehead and left eye. He covered it before he even really noticed much.

"None of that, you."

***

Five extremely stiff Bailey's coffees later, Methos stumbled into the bedroom. He approached the mass of black cloth on the wall and tugged, pulling it away from the wall mounted Venetian mirror Byron had once given him.

He'd looked up what Amanda had said. She was full of bullshit. Yeah it was there, all right, but _he_ didn't have any self esteem issues. He loved himself perfectly well, thank you very much. And if she thought that he felt like he needed to jack off in front of a mirror to feel essentially himself, the she was sorely mistaken.

That he had never really bothered to ask what his essential self was made up of this century had nothing to do with it. He knew. He had always known. Essential things didn't change with time, they were the things that stayed the same while everything _else_ changed, like the primary colors were always red, blue and yellow. That had never changed. That crabs walk sideways and lobsters walk straight. Bob Barker was always the host of The Price Is Right.

Boy was he drunk.

Maybe this was it then, maybe he was due for a little "me time," and his subconscious was telling him this in the only way it knew how: do this or die. He had always been a little hard to convince unless death was on the line.

"Or Twinkies," he said out loud.

His mirror self smiled and made a face at the Twinkie line. He set his mug on the dresser and smoothed his hair back, nodded once.

"All right then, you," he said to the image in the mirror. "Let's get this over with so I can get back to maiming you with liquor."

He debated trying a line on himself. But he never fell for lines. This wasn't going to work.

It wasn't as simple as looking in a mirror and seeing himself touch himself. There had to be more to it. Searching the room helplessly with his eyes produced an idea in the form of an organza valance. Methos removed the valance from the window and cut a sizable amount from it, thinking that the valence had come with the apartment, but hell, he'd always hated it anyway.

He cut one piece of the organza into a long strip and tied it over his eyes. Everything seemed far away and white, misty like the morning after milk white wash of still drunkenness. His face was impossibly pale; all of him was pale, except for the darkness of his clothes. He had shut his eyes when he had tied it on, and so he could see his lashes, a black blur that further confused his vision.

Mirror Methos smiled, and he could feel himself doing the same.

The mirror him reached up and grasped the collar of his shirt. He squinted a little more and drew in a large breath, rolling his head to the side. His left hand grasped him by the throat and ran his thumb along his cheek, tracing the edge of his jaw and over his chin. He leaned into the touch, and for split second, forgot where he was. His thumb brushed against his lips, and he bit the pad of it, then dragged the moistened skin across his cheek.

He slowed his breathing and closed his eyes so that he could fumble a little with the buttons to his shirt, like someone else would, not a person in a mirror who knows where everything is. The first three buttons were easy, but his left hand was rather busy gripping his throat still, not choking, but grasping.

His right hand touched the skin of his chest, a bit of electricity and sliding material all moving down his torso and across his belly, he felt himself become hard and had to undo the fastener of his jeans. This hand finally left his face as he opened his eyes and he was confronted finally, with the reality of himself in the mirror, blindfold tight against his face, making him look blind when he was not, alone when he was in fact, in his own company.

Methos was tired of trying to think about it, as he let the shirt fall and let his hands trail past his nipples, tired of trying to wonder why he was looking at himself like he had never seen this before: a man, slightly panting, toying with the waist of a pair of dungarees, a throbbing hardness under the denim. He slid the trousers off and squinted again, darkening his gaze through his lashes while his hands touched his cock as if they weren't his own. His fingers moved along the rigid length, pressing into it before starting a rhythm.

His skin felt more and more sensitive the wider his eyes got. Methos sat down abruptly on the end of the bed, splaying his legs out. His free hand brushed his hardened nipples before grasping one and twisting a little, making him gasp even though he expected the pain.

In the mirror he could see everything, his own body writhing under touches that should have been expected, his hips starting to thrust with each movement of his grip. Through the misty blindfold he watched his neck arch back when he reached up to grab his throat again, to run through the perspiration starting to form on his shoulders.

He hadn't even registered the sounds he was making, soft whines that had long turned into something more forceful, and before he could even start to think about them in concert with the mirror image, he felt the pressure building in the base of his cock. Methos ripped the blindfold from his face and leaned back onto the bed, arching his back with the orgasm, letting come spill over his hand and onto his chest. His head swirled from all the liquor and the room seemed to swim with brightness now that he'd taken off the blindfold. He pumped into his hand a few more times, crying out with sounds he didn't even recognize as ones he could have made

He was tired. And drunk. And a little messy. And a little thrown. He fingered the blindfold with one hand, then used it to clean himself a little before heading to the shower.

Methos spent the rest of the day alternately showering and indulging in his mirror self, wondering if he should tape it and send a copy of it to Amanda.

His mirror self became something different. It became a strange visage that he had labeled as himself, but who wasn't aware of the age behind his eyes, or the sins there. Hard to do, that, but every time he watched himself come it became easier and easier. Soon, the image wasn't him anymore, not that he recognized with names or identities, but a man, muscles and skin he knew intimately for thousands of years, a cock and back and stomach, two long thighs, arms, a neck that arched just _so_ , a pair of eyes that glinted in ways he tried not to interpret. This Methos was an unfamiliar pale, a tad more flexible, leaner, lighter, almost ghostlike. It was an essential being.

The next day he threw out the blindfold, the valence and the black cloths. That following evening, it occurred to him, as he watched the sun set over the buildings on the west Ille de la Cite, that he hadn't looked in the mirror all day. He stepped back from the window and stared at himself, unkempt, wrapped in a fleece blanket and holding a jar of Nutella and a spoon. Then his focus shifted back to the street outside, where M. Oudinot was sweeping the snow from her stoop in the dying light, her white hair braided and twisted on her head. He watched three children pummel each other with snowballs before whipping around the corner. Somewhere in the distance came a lone siren.

Methos sighed, flopped backward, and reclined on the sofa, using his feet to push his back further into the cushions. He snagged the remote between two toes and plucked it up with his hand, turning on the tele. The newswoman was standing outside of a row of shops.

 _"The thief managed to open all of the Cartier safes, and took virtually all of their contents. Officials are still confused as to how the perpetrator managed to short the security systems."_ Methos smirked and ate another spoonful of Nutella. _"The only thing police do know, is that the tire tracks from the snowy scene down here at the Champ Elysees reveal that the thief or thieves used a sport utility vehicle to haul the stolen goods away..."_

FIN

**Author's Note:**

> So the scenario wasn't as good as it could have been. I think that Methos might shamelessly masturbate in front of mirrors all the time, but *I'm* not the one to write that. All characterizations of Methos being insecure about his own sexuality are mine, and I shamelessly admit that.
> 
> It also occurred to me in a really sick moment that this is like a play along at home story.
> 
> Amand-r's husband shows how a guy would write this story.
> 
> Amand-r's story: A Guy's Perspective  
> BY Tianyu
> 
> Cock hard. SPLORT!
> 
> THE END.


End file.
